Session Details

Understanding Economic Impacts of Disasters and Economic Resilience

Past Event

Webinar Format

Information Sharing

Presentation and Q&A

August 13th

10:00 AM to 12:00 PM

Pacifiic Time

See Event Recording

Objectives

Learn about the fundamental concepts and modeling capabilities for estimating and understanding the macroeconomic impacts of disasters
Learn about the available methodologies and tools for estimating economic resilience including businesses resilience
Discussing the insurance sector role, use of risk information in financial resilience planning as well as the opportunities in response and recovery planning including post COVID recovery

Abstract

The evidence from past disasters as well as the current COVID-19 pandemic response highlight the macro-economic impacts of disasters that are far larger than the direct and immediate damages to physical assets. Understanding the direct and indirect economic impacts of disasters and the interdependency with social and environmental impacts is critical for incentivizing risk reduction investments and for designing plans and policies that are holistic and effective for building economic resilience.

In this session experts from Canada and the U.S. provide insights on the application of ex-ante estimation of the disasters’ macro-economic impacts, fundamentals of the economic resilience, and the role of sovereign risk financing and insurance industry in managing economic impacts of disasters including the response to COVID-19 pandemic in Canada.

Contributors:

Convened by Ms. Sahar Safaie, Sage On Earth Consulting and member of DRR Pathways Project Team.

Moderated by Ms. Malaika Ulmi, Scientific Planning Officer, Natural Resources Canada.

Speakers:

Dr. Adam Rose, US lead researcher (Director of the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events and Research Professor in the Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California)

Mr. Paul Kovacs, Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR)

Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity, Mitzi Dean - Speaker"

Mitzi Dean was elected as MLA for Esquimalt-Metchosin in 2017, and was appointed the Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity in February 2018. Parliamentary Secretary Dean grew up in southeast England and has spent the last 30 years helping vulnerable people. Before moving to the Victoria area in 2005, Mitzi Dean served as a national development manager for children's services with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the U.K.'s largest child protection charity. Prior to that, she worked in child protection social work and community-based social services across Great Britain for more than 20 years. She also volunteered at a Romanian orphanage and a transition house in the U.K. providing refuge for women experiencing relationship violence. Most recently, she served as executive director of the Pacific Centre Family Services Association. PS Dean lives in Metchosin with her partner and daughter.
Robin Cox, Ph.D. Royal Roads University"

Robin is the Program Head of the graduate programs in Climate Action Leadership at Royal Roads University (RRU) and a Professor in the Disaster and Emergency Management Master of Arts program. As Director of the ResilienceByDesign ILab (RbD) at RRU, Robin leads multiple action research and educational initiatives focused on resilience and enhancing the capacity of youth and adults to address the complex and intersecting challenges of climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction.
Emily Dicken, Ph.D. First Nations Health Authority"

Dr. Emily Dicken has worked as a practitioner in the field of emergency management since 2006, spending the first twelve years of her career with the province of BC working in health emergency management and then for Emergency Management BC where she held the role of Director, First Nation Coordination. Emily is now the Director of Emergency Management at First Nations Health Authority. Beyond her work at FNHA, Emily pursues academic interests with a central focus on understanding colonialism as an unnatural and enduring disaster impacting Indigenous communities. When not working, Emily can be found enjoying time in the outdoors with her husband Jeff and their two young sons, Keegan and Bowen.
Jackie Yip, Ph.D. Natural Resources Canada"

Jackie Yip is a Research Scientist within the Public Safety Geoscience Program at Natural Resources Canada, where she is leading research efforts in developing best practices and new methods for understanding flood risk and community resilience and recovery. Her research interest lies at the intersect of climate adaptation, disaster risk modelling, and decision-making, and specializes in predictive modelling and data-visualization.
Laurie Johnson, Ph.D. Laurie Johnson Consulting I Research"

Laurie is an internationally-recognized urban planner specializing in disaster recovery and catastrophe risk management, and based in the San Francisco Bay Area. For over 30 years, she has combined her unique blend of professional practice and research to help communities address the complex urban challenges posed by natural hazards and disasters. Much of her post-disaster recovery efforts are captured in her recent book, After Great Disasters: An In-Depth Analysis of How Six Countries Managed Community Recovery (2017). She is President of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and on the Board of Directors of the Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative and the Advisory Board of the Global Earthquake Model (GEM). She was also inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners (FAICP) in 2018. She holds a Doctorate in Informatics from Kyoto University, Japan, as well as a Master of Urban Planning and Bachelors of Science in Geophysics, both from Texas A&M University.
Sahar Safaie (Moderator). Sage On Earth Consulting

Sahar Safaie is the founder and principal consultant of Sage on Earth Consulting Ltd., based in North Vancouver. The niche of her expertise and services is to enhance the use of disaster and climate risk information in designing resilience policies, investments and programs. She has more than fifteen years of diverse experiences in BC and internationally including at United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), Global Earthquake Model, the World Bank, and Risk Management Solutions. Sahar has lead development of two of the Sendai Framework implementation guidelines on National Disaster Risk Assessment and National Disaster Risk Reduction Strategies.